Man, I can’t remember the name, but a specific one that I particularly remember was from WWII on Peleliu in the Pacific Theater. The entire book basically showed how humans go from people to straight up animals in survival mode. One part towards the end that really stuck with me was when the americans were trying to breach the last Japanese defensive position over the course of a week or so. The author talked in graphic detail about how it looked the second anybody peeked around cover and they’d be gunned down, and he couldn’t shoo the swarms of blowflies away from his rations because they were so slow and bloated from feasting on the piles of american bodies around the fort.
One title I do remember was All Quiet on the Western Front, but that’s far less raw and graphic than the one about Peleliu
Edit: All Quiet on the Western Front was at least partly fictionalized, IIRC
EDIT EDIT: FOUND IT, IT’S CALLED “With the Old Breed” by E. B. Sledge
Man, I can’t remember the name, but a specific one that I particularly remember was from WWII on Peleliu in the Pacific Theater. The entire book basically showed how humans go from people to straight up animals in survival mode. One part towards the end that really stuck with me was when the americans were trying to breach the last Japanese defensive position over the course of a week or so. The author talked in graphic detail about how it looked the second anybody peeked around cover and they’d be gunned down, and he couldn’t shoo the swarms of blowflies away from his rations because they were so slow and bloated from feasting on the piles of american bodies around the fort.
One title I do remember was All Quiet on the Western Front, but that’s far less raw and graphic than the one about Peleliu
Edit: All Quiet on the Western Front was at least partly fictionalized, IIRC
EDIT EDIT: FOUND IT, IT’S CALLED “With the Old Breed” by E. B. Sledge
Intense… I’ll have to look for that one